Maybe something inhere will brighten your night.

Why do buddhists value time alone and in silence so highly? Where is the joy in solitude? What is the beauty of silence? The reason, I have found, is that silence and solitude give us a moment to be who we truly are, without pretense. If we are constantly distracted from our feelings by Facebook news feeds, flipping through channels, working at the office, working on a project for school, etc., then there could be a huge sorrow in our hearts that we never consciously know about, process and release. Only in silence does the distracting noise of surface chatter cease and the truth begin to reveal itself wholly. When we finally take time to take a walk alone, or sit by the river alone, or go to the mountain alone, we can suddenly sense all that lies beneath the surface of our being. Whether it's the divorce we went through as a child, or pain involving an ex-lover, or the hardship of watching our mother get abused, there are so many hard things that we suppress in the hopes that it will magically go away. But to feel IS to heal, often times. And to look at what truly happened with love for yourself and the others involved (which isn't always easy) can liberate you from these massive, yet hidden wounds we carry around with us wherever we go. Over time these emotional and spiritual wounds can sometimes manifest as physical wounds: headaches, muscle aches, and I have heard of and seen cancers develop from emotional duress and be healed through emotional release. To truly feel pain, address it, learn from it, love it and heal it, is not so comfortable or easy. For this reason, often times distractions are welcomed so that we can postpone feeling and gaining the associated wisdom and healing that comes with feeling. But I assure this process of feeling, addressing, learning, loving and healing is worth every moment of it. Luckily we don't have to tackle everything that comes with silence and solitude all at once. Even bite sized amounts of this can assist in creating incredible forward motion and healing. While the process of truly feeling your feelings can be a little challenging in the moment, the rewards are liberating and feel like a weight off your back. This process is best approached with a prayer to the ancestors to help you process the feelings. They will help and help a lot. It also seems to be worth doing if it is done with the objective of finding love for all parties involved. Not to say that what they have done was any good; This is just to say that you seek to find love them (or yourself) even in the face of atrocity. The ancestors can help with this too; It is their specialty. They are real--we can at least give them a chance to help by requesting their help and presence. Space for solitude and silence does not happen on its own in a world like this. There seems to be a need for deliberate action on your part to claim your time from a world that believes it owns you and your time. It does NOT. And the more the world needs you, the more important it is that you demand and work for your solitude and silence, or else all your work will be distorted by the pain that lies beneath. It seems to be most effective when it occurs in nature, with only rivers, trees, rocks and birds as your silent but loving companions. Mother Earth seems to have a way of deftly listening to and soaking in your sorrow or anger or grief or pain and transmuting it into strength and understanding. So, if you wish to find relief from that pressure that nags at you day and night, that which you can't quite name or define, then take time to be alone for an hour once a week with no phone, no television and no "work." If you wish to create a new project that hold great importance to you, take a walk alone in silence for one hour/week (at least) to feel into why you are doing it and how it could be. These times of silence are ripe with truth, peace, growth, sometimes pain, but eventually a deep reward for you and all life on earth. And who knew we'd have to fight for silence? Who knew we'd have to work so hard to just not work? Haha. But find your silence. Claim your silence. Demand your silence from a world that demands you have none. Have the courage to sit in that uncomfortable sea of nothingness where you finally have to face all the things you wish didn't exist but do. It is essential to your well being and functioning. Find your place(s), whether it be that one clean room in your house; that one spot beneath a tree in your backyard; the nature place that takes ten minutes to drive to; or the river flowing behind your house. Model to the next generation that this time of review and silence is not an indication of laziness or selfishness; It is an indication of wisdom and sophistication, and ultimately, efficacy. We--a society so obsessed with noise, news clips, action, arguments, debates, anger, confrontation, stimulation and busy-ness--must recreate ourselves and re-carve a place of silence (some might call it prayer) in our lives. It is a great healing measure for the wounded world outside of us, and the wounded world within us. WE CAN HEAL.

I can only pray to be more like you.You who has no name.You who has no money.You who has no clothesand eats the light of the sun.

This flower alone,unintentionally and nonchalantly declaring to the universethat peacethat orderthat compassionthat beautyawaits us allwhether in this life

or the next.

She accidentally wins every argument against herjust by being everything that she is.

The warring nations try not to look at herlest they become dumbfounded and see thatall their great plans are jejunein the face of just one pieceof her pollen that can generate childrenas beautiful as herso wondrously and effortlessly.

And can anyone please tell me the purpose of beauty?Why is it here?Why do we feel the way we feel when we stand before it?Why are her petals painted this way?And how does it help the economy?Is it here to make us famous?Or could these brushes against her being truly beGod’s calligraphy against the world whispering to usin the dark of night about what we already are?

And how can this flower alonewith no hands and no wordsbe strong enough to turn my face awayfrom the nightly newsand towards a sightthat taught me morethan the ivy league ever could?

I see now why the darkness hasso systematically isolated us fromCreator's natural world.

Because humans lost in their infatuation withtrees and bees and rocks and riversare hard to control.

They can only laugh at coercion,or worse, you could start laughing yourself.

And if I was just one soldierwho dropped her gun on the groundand ran into the forestin search of more of these flowerswould it do anything to change the world?

Or would the war still rage on?

But if the whole army came with mewould we finally rob the world of warcompletely

and sweetly sing with her songs of praisethanking that lapping waterslike a bunch of human beingslost in the wonder of Creator'sgreat scheme to feed our bodies, minds and souls.

When the people were held captive at Fort Sumner they did not have access to food or water. Every year we tried to plant our corn seeds in the barren sand. And every year our crops failed. Any man who dared escape was shot on site. The men with guns brought in their alcohols and the strange language they spoke could not be reconciled with our own. In our Diné (Navajo) language, we had no word for "power," no word for "money" and no word for "conquest." How could we begin to negotiate with a force we could not fathom?

The shock of violence took us by complete surprise and our words get caught in our throats to this day.

Perhaps the hardest thing we faced in this concentration camp, Hwééldi, the place of suffering, was the treatment of our women. They loved their children dearly and the soldiers understood this. If our foremothers wanted food or water for their children, they would have to give their bodies to the soldiers, over and over again. Their husbands, brothers and sons went mad at the sight and sound. This place was not meant to destroy our bodies. It was meant to destroy our souls.

Why would I ever bother to invoke such a dark and painful chapter in our nation's history? Please trust that I do not write these things to place blame, judgement or guilt on anyone, dead or alive. I know that these are useless emotions that create far more harm than they prevent. I write these words with patience, love and completeforgiveness, for my people and for all people, to bring us closer to freedom and closer to beauty as a human family. I write this because, quite unfortunately, this history is not history. It is still living and breathing through my people today. To explain, after four years of this torture and starvation at Fort Sumner, we were released back into the sea of sand, back to Diné Bikeyah, our homeland that we had known for millennia upon millennia. We were released on one condition: that we give our children to the boarding schools that the government had established for them. The official policy of the "Bureau of Indian Affairs" at this time was, "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." Destroy the native culture within and bring out of this same child a "civilized" man, and do this through boarding schools that were more army barracks than learning places.Thousands of our little yazhi, plucked from the life of ajohbá', the life of loving kindness, and dropped into the hands of these institutions which still exist today. Day in and day out they were told to forget their language, to forget their families, to forget their customs and values, to forget the land, forget the smell of dried cedar on coals, the way the corn seeds burst through the soil on crisp summer mornings, forget the sound of the blue bird's song at dawn. Forget it all. And trade it in for a more "formal education" of reading, writing and arithmetic.

This plan has largely worked. Native languages go extinct every month and our children are continually pursuing a Western life, forgoing our earth-based existence.

My grandmother tells me stories of her time at the boarding school. She tells me about the physical abuse--only to reassure me that they only did this because "they loved her" and wanted her to be "disciplined." My grandfather tells me of the times the dorm matron would touch him in uncomfortable ways. From this point, cycles of physical and sexual violence echo through the generations until one of us has the courage to speak it out into the open, forgive and transmute the pattern.

Diné (Navajo) people, native to the deserts of what is now called New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado, are living crippled by the effects of this sustained inhumane treatment. We have a 42% unemployment rate, 20% of us have diabetes and one third of our people lack electricity and running water while the cities around us flourish with golf courses and lighted down towns. Our home is being minded, fracked and drilled from beneath our feet to fuel the carbon economy. We wouldn't want it if it was offered, but it is striking how the vast majority of the revenue from this behavior never reaches our plates. This is the state of nearly every native community in the country: defeat, exploitation, hopelessness.

Recently, I picked up a Diné woman who was hitchhiking outside of Gallup, NM. Her name was Michelle. She was beautiful and she was drunk and I worried for her.

Despite her inebriation, she prayed in our native tongue all the way down the road, asking for blessings upon me and upon her children, who were taken from her by social services.

We pulled up to a few boards of plywood and tin roofing that she called home and she stumbled out. I shed tears as she made her way into the shack. I knew she would be cold and alone that night on a windswept hill outside of Window Rock, Arizona.

What was even more painful was that I knew she was not alone in her suffering, but that so many native people, throughout the country, have fallen into such holes of addiction and poverty. Indeed, I only climbed out of this hole myself just a few years ago.

I am writing this to say... Fort Sumner was not in 1864. Fort Sumner is today, tomorrow and every day until our nation works together to bring the Diné and other native nations out of their long years of discontent.

It is not money that will do this. It is not more Indian Health Service clinics that will do this. It is not more technology or fast food restaurants that will do this. Love. Love alone will do this. The cure is an acknowledgement of and an apology for this ancient wound and an effort to reverse its effects. It is a declaration, ringing out from our every word and action as a nation, that our native ancestors were not inferior, were not worthless, were not "savage" or "uncivilized," but rather, they were equal to all others around the world and that, in all actuality, they were quite beautiful and deserving of love, kindness and respect.

In the words of Sun Bear, a Chippewa elder who passed from flesh not too long ago, "I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man."

By this definition, our people were incredibly civilized. We lived in one place, without courts, police men or war, for thousands and thousands of years, and never depleted the natural cycles that surrounded and sustained us.

If we are ever to regain this state of health and civilization as Diné people, the world needs to first stand behind us when we say, "We are beautiful children of the Creator and we belong here, in our own home."

The world needs to take away all the monuments and icons that glorify the conquest of our people (think the twenty dollar bill, Harney Peak and Kit Carson Park) and replace these monuments with symbols of peace and reconciliation. We need to work together to build this sense of reconciliation between white and red and enact this reconciliation in our every motion.

We need to apologize to each other. We need to forgive one another. We need to share with each other and commune in the abundance of our Mother Earth together. We need to take the time to speak and to listen to one another's stories. We need to shake the etch-a-sketch of our collective identity until it is not more and replace it with an illustration of truth, forgiveness, reconciliation and peaceful collaboration. We need to come together as the wayward brothers and sisters that we truly are and always have been. I am happy to say that, in many ways, when I look out into the world, this already happening. The federal patent office has revoked the Redskins trademark, the President has sat and listened to the youth of the Standing Rock Reservation, there is talk of changing the name and face on the $20 bill and all throughout the land, our people are standing up again with pride and light in their eyes to pray for a better world. I am asking you now to join us in this movement to re-write our history as one of triumph over fear instead of triumph over one other. I am asking you to stand with me as we redefine the relationship between native and non-native peoples as one of beauty, joy and synergy. Consider this your official invitation extended from my hand to yours with all the love, hope and respect in my heart for you, your family, your ancestors and your descendents to come.

And so why is it important for me to say these things? Why would I ever invoke these tragedies of our past? I write these things because right now, as we speak, my people are suffocating in smoke of the legacy of "Manifest Destiny." But more so, I write these things because I believe that you and I can do something about it.Be a breeze thread with me in this tapestry of mighty winds that are sweeping through our communities. Let's become the beautiful gusts of change that our people need, all people need. For in the liberation of Native peoples, there is liberation for all. In a world as interconnected as this, no one is free until everyone is free. Each of us a feather on the body of mother eagle, we will only fly if we fly together. So let us clear the smoke from the heart and lungs of this nation and replace it with the freshness of truth and the exquisite medicine of reconciliation. This is what we were born for.Yéhgo shidiné'é'! With fortitude my people!

When I close my eyes at nightI can feel the rock being cut openby water.

I hear a grandfather songand it sounds like sandwalking downthe river bottom.

In this song they talk about howeven the mighty canyon walls are formedby meandering streams.

Beneath the gentle waters there are people.Not people like you and I.

Stone people.

When I close my eyes at nightI am one of themand God is the water.

Over lifetimesShe eats away at meuntil I am polishedand smooth.

She teaches meabout being gentle and persistent,about patience and commitment.

She speaks to mein trickle languageand says:

“Journeys.Take them.And try to rememberwho you arealong the way.

I have nothing for youbut these words.

Take them with youand I will see you againwhen you arriveat the ocean’s throne asone million kernels of sand.”

Her voicehums in my bloodquiet as a stream in the nightand it is a song about howwe are alljustso loved.

The eagles dip their talons into Her soft bodyand pull from it a fisha fleshmealfor their children.

They sing this grandfather song with herand it sounds like featherscutting into the sky.

In this song they talk about how even hatred surrenders to wonder.

She is breaking my heart apart likea stubborn puzzle of problems. Even the hardestdoubts and sorrowsgive way to Her infinite grace.

And who knew that sometimesgrace can come fromstanding in the wind untileverything we think we ownis ripped away from us andreplaced with a weightlessnessso profound thatwe can’t not cry tearsof absolute praiseand run all around theriver banks shoutingto the minnowsand the cattailsand the crawdadsabout the truth of beauty!?

About the truth of a God thatbreathes through the trees.

The truth of a God thatweaves winter from water and nightweaves bodies from dust and lightand carries us down the river of lifeover and overuntil we finally understandthe meaning of forever.

In the language of the stones there is no word for mistake.Only the complete understanding of what itmeans to be a beloved son or daughter.

We mistake humility for weakness. We mistake prayer for weakness. We mistake admitting our imperfections for weakness. No one is perfect. Luckily for us, life is not about being perfect. It is about having the courage to look at the imperfections in us and in the world and LOVE THROUGH IT. This is strength. Each day I ask Creator to make me a better person. Not because I am weak but because I am strong enough to fall to my knees and cry. I am finally strong enough to expose all my cuts and bruises to the sunshine where they can be seen and healed. How can the doctor treat your wounds, if you do not show them to Him? Pretending there is nothing wrong with us doesn't magically make the wounds go away. I wish it did... But there are no shortcuts in healing. Luckily, we are not here to be perfect. We are here to be broken and learn the meaning of unconditional love by getting put back together again.